Digital migrant in wargaming land.. the nostalgic smell of ink on paper

In the 90's I subscribed to the magazine "Practical Wargamer", and have quite a few copies in my 'games room.

I dragged them out the other night to hunt out some scenario ideas for the ACW. I had obviously already done that at some time in the past because I already have Volley and Bayonet conversions for all the scenarios I found. But the rather enjoyable and nostalgic browse set me thinking.

The war gaming magazines I have access to these days are so product specific! 'Practical Wargamer' used to cover a wide range of rules sets and periods, and I found a very cool scenario idea for an Austrian/Serbian game for 1914 (an unexpected benefit of the browse, although I now need to paint some Austrians.. ). But it is this very diversity that seems to be lacking from magazines today. Of course I suspect this is driven by an economic imperative, and shouldn't be taken as a criticism of the publishers of some very cool magazines on the market today. I buy 'White Dwarf', and enjoy reading it each month.

I guess I am just lamenting the loss of a delightful genre of magazine. I can get quite a lot of what I am after from the myriad of blogs and web sites that I follow, but I guess you can call me old fashioned - I love the smell of the ink on paper, the feel of the glossy magazine in my hands as I browse the pages in bed at night before I tackle the challenge of sleep. And these magazines had contributions from so many of those famous names, Charles Grant, Charles S Grant, Stuart Asquith. Ahh, those were the days. I'm certainly a digital migrant!!